''Sphegina culex'' is a species of hoverfly in the family Syrphidae found in Kambaiti Pass,

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, a montane forest with swampy areas and streams located 2000 meters above sea level.

Etymology

The name comes from Latin 'culex', meaning 'mosquito', referring to the mosquito-like appearance of the fly.

Description

Like other species in its genus, ''S. culex'' is small and slender, though unlike them it bears a mosquito-like appearance. In male specimens, the body length is 4.6–4.9 millimeters. The wings are 4.4–4.8 millimeters long, hyaline, with very pale stigma. The face is strongly concave with a weakly developed frontal prominence. The face and gena are dark; frons and vertex black and semi-shiny; lunula shiny brown; occiput dull black; antenna dark brown, basal flagellomere baso-ventrally reddish; thorax black; pro- and mesoleg yellow,

tarsomeres The arthropod leg is a form of jointed appendage of arthropods, usually used for walking. Many of the terms used for arthropod leg segments (called podomeres) are of Latin origin, and may be confused with terms for bones: ''coxa'' (meaning hip, plur ...

4 and 5 black; metaleg with coxa brownish, trochanter yellow; metafemur blackish, basal 1/3 yellow; metatibia without apico-ventral tooth, colour yellow, the apical 1/4 black and an obscure brownish annulus on the basal 1/2; tarsus black. No female specimens are known.

Related Species

''S. culex'' is similar to '' S. pollex'', though it differs by having a large (instead of small) membranous incision at the posterior margin of male sternite IV, and by lacking a thumb-like subbasal sublobe located dorso-medially on the dorsal lobe of the surstylus. Both species have superior lobes similar to '' S. achaeta's'', but the postero-dorsal lobe-like part is rounded (acute in ''S. achaeta'').

References

Brachyopini Insects described in 2015 Diptera of Asia {{Brachyopini-stub